Battered, beleaguered, but good enough: Dolphins o-line holds firm

Ja’Wuan James and the o-line have overcome one thing after another. (Allen Eyestone/The Post)

DAVIE—It would take too long to list the number of things that have gone wrong for the Dolphins’ offensive line the last season and a half, but just in the past week or so they lost their position coach to a national scandal and their best individual player to a concussion.

Yet here they are.

No matter what goes wrong for this group, on or off the field, they always seem to pull through. The line struggled the first four games and should’ve gotten even worse when Mike Pouncey went down Sunday, but they held up against the Falcons to help the offense score 20 straight points for the win.

“Last game, you saw it across the board,” coach Adam Gase said. “They were trying to make sure that they stayed on their guys as long as possible. They were fighting to stay in position in the pass game. If they did get beat, they strained to recover.

“Really, a lot of times in this league, that’s what it’s all about: Who’s willing to fight for the entirety of the play? I think our guys had a good mindset last week. That’s what we’re looking to build off of.”

As Pouncey goes through the NFL-mandated concussion protocol, the line proceeds with Jake Brendel at center. Ja’Wuan James and Laremy Tunsil are at right and left tackle, and the Dolphins are depending on Anthony Steen and Jermon Bushrod.

Steen and Bushrod are at risk of losing their spot once Ted Larsen returns from Injured Reserve. This is the first week Larsen is eligible to practice, and he can play Week 9 against Oakland. He was initially thought to be the team’s starting left guard.

The line went through similar upheaval last year, when it utilized seven starting lineups and 10 total starters. Two of them, Dallas Thomas and Billy Turner, were midseason cuts. Despite that, the group rallied and was good enough to help Miami make the playoffs.

“Coach Gase, from past teams when I was here, he changed the culture and got us on some ‘we don’t care’ attitude, like we’ve just gotta get the job done no matter what the circumstances are. That’s a credit to him and a credit to all of us for responding to it.”

After a particularly rough performance against the Titans the previous week, the Dolphins gave Jay Cutler more time and did not allow a sack in the Atlanta game. James said the overall adherence to assignments was better than it’d been and agreed with Gase about their determination.

“Honestly, our effort is one thing that carries us,” James said. “If we’re doing something wrong—If everybody’s doing it wrong but we have effort, or if one guy’s doing it wrong but going 110 miles per hour, it can make up for it. That’s one thing they shouldn’t have to coach us on.”